Percival Lowell

“ With ability for audience this had immediate effect; with mediocrity it was rather his tact that told. His logic was too accurate for popular approval, which prefers the coloring of emotion to the lines of thought. For very few men care for truth as they care for their feelings. And Mr. Lowell's forte was not the silver tongue of eloquence, but the more golden gift of statement, lie could put a point so that it pierced perception instantly. ”

“ A man who sees clearly must be honest by instinct if he be not dishonest by intent. There is with him no limbo of self-deception. Much of the untruth current in the world is due to an initial haziness of conception subsequently seized upon and distorted to its own ends by passion, without disquiet to the perpetrator, because unrecognized as distortion by him. Mr. Lowell was essentially exact. ”

“ Too strong a personality to be generally popular, recognition of such a character is slow. For we are all prone to praise what we like. Only when distance does away with personal perspective do men, like hills, reveal their height. ”

“ The Lowell Institute is too well known to need description, but one phase of it will bear mention in connection with the man who for so long was its trustee. Most institutions of learning live by begging. If they happen to be possessed of presidents who are past masters in the art, they thrive ; if not so blessed, they languish. That a president should be an able intellectual director is unfortunately not so pressing a demand as that he should be a persistent, importunate, and successful beggar. ”

“ Many is the memorable evening he passed in consequence with men who have made the world what it is. Such personal knowledge of a man is as invaluable as it is invigorating. Even in an estimate of the mind a side light of no mean value is shed on it by intercourse with the personality. The man proves a footnote to his own writings. This advantage of glosses on the text Mr. Lowell possessed ; and in various aspects in as much as he was thrown with these men in diverse relations. Intercourse of the sort he enjoyed more or less for nearly half a century. ”

“ For Mr. Lowell knew no such thing as shirking: in the discharge of duty. He disliked the disagreeable as much as any one, but he was not weak. Of the financial position he held in the down-town community it is enough commentary that seven bonds of treasurers of great corporations were found in his tins at his death, deposited with him as president.
Such were the business concerns with which he was connected. But side by side with them he gave much time and thought to matters of more public interest. For many years he was a trustee of the Boston Eye and Ear Infirmary. ”

“ To be generally in evidence means a loss of that delicacy of distinction, if it means nothing more, which is for so much in beauty of character. But it means usually very much more; it leads inevitably to a substitution of superficiality for solidity, of appearance for reality, of a sinking to a level of one's audience instead of a rising superior to applause. ”

“ To say that a man owed nothing to effect is to say of him the best that can possibly be said. The natural forces with which we daily come in contact owe nothing to such cause; on the contrary they stir us all the deeper, if we stop to think, for the very fact that they do not stir us without such thought. ”

“ For posterity judges of a man's worth unhaloed by the engaging lack of it, and sets the seal of its appreciation upon those who have contributed to the world's advance and incidentally to posterity's own existence. To make for this advance is the best any man can do, and to this end to be determined, discerning, and honest is one of the surest means. If a man possess these attributes he will not have lived in vain. ”

“ It was not that the ideas themselves were what one would call impersonal, but that the idea appeared by itself with so little of that aura of the personal, which in human affairs the man unconsciously throws around it, as to appear to stand alone. ”

“ As potent is the principle when the self-effacement is unconscious. The one obliteration differs from the other only in being instinctive instead of being thought out; and the one is as telling as the other. ”

“ For a century the American has been noted for his innate inventiveness and general ingenuity, and has been equally noted for the untrained character of his craft. In some things this did well enough, but in the higher branches it left a good deal to be desired. ”

“ Lowell was its intellectual body and its executive arm as well. For the Institute is a one man power, an absolute dictatorship. Mr. Lowell was president, corporation, and treasurer all together. And the success he made of it shows again the wisdom of such a rule, provided only the ruler be fit. Of his capacity as financier the property speaks ; of his ability in general administration the list of lecturers before the institution sufficiently betokens. ”

“ However it be brought about, the fact that the self is effaced is proof that the work has been done well. For it shows that the result has been brought to pass with the least expenditure of force. Personality causes friction, and evidence of self is therefore proof that force has been uselessly employed. The fact that a man has succeeded in having his idea prevail without forcing himself along with it is sign of the best kind of work.
Now this was the case with Mr. Lowell. ”

“ It is the greatest compliment to a man's ability that he should succeed without seeming to do so, because it shows that all his force has been massed upon the one strategic point. We are all familiar with this when it is done of intent aforethought. ”

“ Important as the qualities he possessed are to the making of a man, they are no less so to the making of a community. And in any constitutional country no small part of the value of a man lies in his value as a citizen. ”

“ In intent he was singularly single. Indeed, in describing his action I find it difficult to convey the combination of self-obliteration and of self-sufficiency in its best sense, which he was. For the character is uncommon. One often witnesses self-abnegation. But it is usually wedded to weakness. Or, on the other hand, one sees strength associated with self-seeking. Few men are essentially impersonal enough to strive strenuously for the thing in itself, as if it were a person. ”

“ To be determined, discerning, and honest does not, unfortunately, in our system of supposed political equality, lead to purely civic distinction. For the choice of a popular suffrage cannot rise above its source. But if the qualities do not lead to civic distinction for their possessor they do something as enduring, — they tend to raise to his level the community of which he forms a part. ”

“ Lowell was identified with this phenomenally successful institution almost from its start. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology was founded in 1861, chiefly through the instrumentality of Prof. William B. Rogers. To the same eminent mind it owed its early success. Measure of the man's executive ability in the first place, its success was in the, long run the sign of his forethought in founding it. A school of technology was exactly what the American genius had demanded for many years in vain. It seems strange that no one should have heeded this unmistakable cry of nature before ”

“ Some of these men came more than once ; and many of them became well known personally to Americans. But the fact conuected with them which speaks most for the institution and its trustee is that well-nigh without exception each came originally at his instigation. Almost all the famous foreigners in science, literature, or art who have been in this country have owed their personal introduction to it to the trustee of the Lowell Institute. Since from over seas these lecturers came, simply as a bond between countries the Institute has played no unimportant part. ”

“ He was also a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science from 1898; of the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1900; of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts from 1898. He died on June 22, 1901.
Such, in brief, was what Mr. Lowell did. Quite as important is what he was. For the man was always behind his measures, as the whole includes the part. His actions were but parcel of himself. Not always is this the case. Some men become noteworthy for what they do, while being notorious for what they are. But with him the act was outcome of the man. ”

“ At all events, of the sou's labors at that institution of learning the sole document extant is of the Incus a non kind : a petition to his Honor the Mayor and Chairman of the School Committee to allow the boys the first day of May as a holiday in which they might " enjoy the beauties of nature and a recreation and relaxation from school labors." Mr. Lowell appears heading the interesting document, which was couched as convincingly as possible by a classmate. ”

“ On the roster of the books are to be found a, majority of the names which are known the world over, and almost every one of those to whose possessors distance or age or language did not prove an impassable bar. ”

“ At the time the Institute was founded lectures were a popular form of instruction, and the object of the testator was to secure for the people of Boston lectures by the most eminent men at home and abroad, and to give these to the public free of charge. ”

“ Greenough, a career which ended more than twenty years later in the negotiations he conducted as its president when it became necessary to sell the property, which he did for two and a quarter times all it had ever cost. In addition to holding the offices above mentioned he was treasurer of the Merrimack Manufacturing Company, -Tune 20-October 29, 1877 ; president of the Massachusetts Cotton Mills ; of the Massachusetts Mills in Georgia ; of the Pacific Mills ; of the Merrimac Manufacturing Company, 1887-8, 1892 to death; of the Boott 'Cotton Mills; of the Lowell Bleachery ”